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Thursday, November 25, 2004

DRUGS DON'T WORK: Oddly, the drugs charities (the ones campaign against, rather than for) aren't very impressed with Pete Doherty being called the coolest person in rock by the NME, because apparently The Kids will read their NME this week and head out and buy crack cocaine just because they've been told it's cool.

The poorly named drug charity Addaction (presumably they were on drugs when they came up with such an awful name) isn't happy:

"The record industry does have a responsibility to promote healthy lifestyles," policy manager Rebecca Cheshire told The Times newspaper.

Does it? Why? You could perhaps argue that - like all other industries - it shouldn't promote illegal activity, but when did the health of the nation pass to the music industry as its duty? Are we to see Rachel Stevens swallowing five portions of veg a day from now on? Is Will Young going to be taking over the MMR programme from the government?

We have a bit of sympathy for the NME here (perhaps naturally) - the point of the list is to take the pulse of the people who've shaped the year, and it's undeniable that from an NME perspective, the Libertines have totally owned the year. The problem is probably in the choice of "Cool" as a description for what they were measuring.